The 3-3 deadlock Thursday on the reappointment of longtime Planning Commission Chairman Bob Wagner represents the beginning of the seventh chapter of the soap opera that is Dorr Township politics.
The soap opera has lasted six years, and it is amazing Dorr Township has been able to accomplish much of anything under such conditions.
Yet this latest chapter is not likely to produce the change proponents of this slow-moving coup d’etat have wanted. It is likely that Wagner will be seated again as chairman of the Planning Commission because the missing vote was of Trustee Josh Otto, who is unlikely to join the treachery. That means Wagner will be back on a 4-3 vote.
Seven chapters. Allow me to explain:
• Chapter One — A group of citizens, led by Bernie Schumaker, Patty Senneker, John Tuinstra and Christine Schwartz, lead the movement to recall of all seven township board members because they approved the construction and installation of a water and sewer system along 142nd Avenue.
The officials maintained that as long as the road was being reconstructed and repaved, this would be a good time to put in sewer and water, with an eye toward attracting future business and industrial development. The Contras were opposed because of the increase in taxes.
The Contras lost at the ballot box in 2011, with all seven township officials surviving a special election.
• Chapter Two — 
Tuinstra, Senneker and Brian Boot, all identified (by me) as Contras, file for and win primary election seats in August 2012, defeating two trustee incumbents, Larry Dolegowski and Paul Davis, and seizing control of the clerk’s office. They threaten to upset the apple cart and change the face of the Township Board.
• Chapter Three — The Contras score an apparent huge victory by badgering (particularly by Senneker) Supervisor Tammy VanHaitsma into resigning her post. Six people apply for the position to succeed her and Tuinstra and Senneker both vote to support Jeff Miling, who had been serving as maintenance supervisor for the township.
Miling, a neighbor and friend of Schumaker, had signed the recall petition, so it looks like the balance of power has shifted in the Contras’ favor.
Chapter Four — Miling and Boot gradually pull away from the Contras’ political philosophies and begin to side more with Trustees Josh Otto and Dan Weber and making Treasurer Janice Saunders a swing vote.
Saunders later resigns and is replaced by Jim Martin, who doesn’t seem sympathetic to the cause of Senneker and Tuinstra.
Thus, Dorr Township seemed on the brink of being a local example of a politicial coup d’etat, but Miling and Boot thwarted the attempted takeover.
• Chapter Five — Senneker and Tuinstra fight back by filing to run for supervisor against Miling in the August 2014 primary election. Their efforts fail miserably, as Miling polls more votes than both of them combined.
• Chapter Six — Senneker tries to run again for supervisor against Miling and again is trounced at the polls. She therefore is retired from Township Board in December 2016.
However, coming in under the radar are Debbie Sewers and Terri Rios. The former literally beats the bushes and goes door to door in a successful campaign to oust her former boss, Boot. Rios runs unopposed in the primary for Senneker’s old seat and sneaks onto the board as an ally.
Sewers and Rios join Tuinstra, sharing the philosophy of obstruction and ant-tax fervor.
• Chapter Seven — The threesome of Tuinstra, Rios and Sewers combine efforts to block, at least temporarily, the reappointment of Wagner, who has been chairman of the Planning Commission for more than 40 years.
Miling has admitted that when he first became supervisor he was under a lot of pressure from the Contras to get rid of Wagner and at first he did remove him and Karen Slater from the Zoning Board of Appeals. However, not long afterward, he said, he came to understand the value of Wagner’s experience and expertise in planning issues, so he sought reappointment in 2014 and again this year.
So what will Chapter Eight bring? Stay tuned. As the late Detroit Pistons’ scout, Will Robinson, used to say, “It ain’t very good, but it sure is interesting.”
PHOTOS: Patty Senneker and Bernie Schumaker, ringleaders of the Contras.
Bob Wagner
